


because you were there

by Jazzi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Fire spirit keith, Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Water spirit lance, much fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 20:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18557614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazzi/pseuds/Jazzi
Summary: Keith's favourite pastime is drawing, It's just never of people; landscapes, animals and objects but never another human being. But when a mysterious but familiar boy starts appearing in many of his artworks it just leaves Keith confused.





	because you were there

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read this I want to say a huge thanks to my friend who beta read this entire chapter, I really appreciate it! It's now a lot more coherent to the original mess that I gave you so thank you! 
> 
> I'm going to try to get chapters up monthly so enjoy!

The slight breeze picked up as leaves flew through the air swallowing the light with shades of orange, brown and red. The inky black hair of a small framed boy fluttered in the wind as the sound of rustling pages distracted him from the spectacle happening in his surroundings, he braced himself closing his eyes as the now strong blast of wind passed around him. As he looked up, the leaves flit to the ground. Settling back down, they left no trace of the previous winds. The boy glanced back to the sketched pages of the black covered book.

 

He sighed, focusing on the now crinkled paper and huffed to himself in pure aggravation, _"Fucking hell! Now I have to start again."_

 

His fit was promptly interrupted by the echoing of a bell in the distance, which insisted that he should probably start packing up his things and head off for his final class of the day. His eyes shifted to the now scattered supplies that lay disregarded in the flurry of leaves and dirt. Sighing as he bent down, he hastily picked up the multitude of pens, markers and pencils, stuffed them in his bag, and trudged to the small art classroom bordering the main building. He hurriedly barged into the classroom, evading contact with the several judgemental stares pursuing him to his seat at the back of the room.

 

"Keith, do you mind sharing why you're 10 minutes late to class?"

 

Keith met the icy blue eyes of Ms Blyett and quickly shook his head before dropping his gaze to the numerous worn doodles scrawled over the surface of the wooden desk.

 

As the lecture began, Keith discreetly slid his sketchbook onto the desk and started redoing the artwork that the wind had efficiently ruined. The murmuring between students blurred into nothing as his seemingly deep purple eyes shifted from paper to pencil, slowly glazing over as the lesson continued. His focus was set entirely on his art. He subconsciously blocked out the class commotion, defining the outlines and sketching across the page, molding the shape and form.

 

Even as his classmates completely cleared out of the room, Keith continued to sketch the long trunks of trees, shade the shadows creeping up from the depths of the undergrowth, highlight the minimal rays of sun that shone through the canopy leaves, contrasting the eternal darkness that seemed to consume the entire illustration. From the amount of depth on the page it may be assumed that he had spent several hours there, however he was abruptly snapped out of his trance by a hand resting on the corner of the page.

 

"I believe the bell already went, but you are welcome to stay if you promise to go to the guidance counselor at some point tomorrow." Ms Blyett concernedly watched the boy withdraw further into his seat evading her gaze. Sympathetic, she paused in contemplation before opening her mouth to speak again.

 

She pushed herself up from her chair "I know you’re hesitant, but it might help you be able to talk to people more, I haven't seen you utter word since I met you." A small smile tugged on her lips as she bent down to what would be his eye level, although he never met her at it from what she had experienced. She walked back towards her desk and as she picked up her papers she heard the slight noise of pens clambering into a pencil case. When she next turned there was no trace of him.

  


**________________________________**

 

Pestered by the deafening horns echoing from the traffic, Keith pulled out his headphones and shoved them into his ears, increasing the volume to drown out the background noise with a soft piano melody and the harmonious strings of a guitar. As he neared the corner, he turned into his street. Bare, spindly trees, stripped of their leaves stood amongst the dry, overgrown turf, providing a dreary reminder of their years of neglect. Rickety, crumbling houses of all stature and size passed by him as he evaded slabs of broken concrete laying worthlessly across the mossy footpath. He turned to face a two storey house, towering over the two single flats beside it.

 

Heavy footsteps echoed from beyond the front door, as well as two voices screaming over the top of one another. The clashing of ceramics urged Keith to turn up his music again. He made his way to the door, however did not open it. Brushing away the shards of glass bottles and scattered remains of photograph frames littering the front step he crouched down, taking his sketchbook out of his bag again, he allowed himself to be whisked far away from his reality by the soothing tune blasting in his ears.

 

Time passed quickly as the strokes of graphite filled the page, forming atmosphere and depth around the foreground of the forest, bringing his vision to life. Checking his phone again, he realised 2 hours had passed - enough time, he decided, for it to be safe to enter the house. Shoving his headphones into his pocket, Keith silently turned the handle and pressed his hand against the doors chipped paint, listening to it creak open on its rusted hinges. He stepped inside and climbed the worn wooden stairs assessing the damage.

 

Multiple empty beer bottles sitting on the counter caught his eye, surrounded by broken glass scattered across the floorboards. This was nothing Keith was not familiar with; his adoptive father rarely thought about his son’s whereabouts outside of requiring him to fetch him a whiskey because he ‘had a bad day’. He crept up the stairs, hearing hushed sobs coming from the bathroom. His heart sunk as he slowly advanced, sticking his head around the door where warm, hazelnut brown eyes met his.

 

"Oh Keith, welcome home,” the woman hurriedly wiped her tears away with her sleeve. “Sorry I'll start on dinner soon." She rose to her feet and tried to briskly walk past him, half hiding her red eyes with her hands.

 

Keith grabbed her wrist. "Mum, are you ok? Did dad go off to the pub again?"

 

She slowly met his concerned eyes again before nodding, tears falling down her tanned skin. He did not hold eye-contact, his gaze falling to the floor once again. He desperately wanted to comfort his broken mother, his mind was scrambling for something to say but it came up empty.

 

"How was school today? Did you talk to anyone?" She weakly smiled at him, affirming that she was ok, while he just responded with a slight shake of his head. "Well that's ok, you have plenty of time. Anyone would be lucky to have you as their friend." She turned away, her arm slowly pulling out of his grasp as he stood there for a while, feeling guilty that she was pretending to be strong for his sake, before walking to his bedroom.

 

The deep red that layered the walls of his room stared back at him as he listened to the door quietly click behind him. Keith placed his bag down onto the cold wooden floor. He pulled out the somewhat finished piece and tacked it up on his bulletin board, scanning across the recreations of landscapes, animals and objects as he sighed and slumped onto the floor. It wasn't his intention to never draw people in his artworks but he just didn't want to draw something he didn't seem to understand. Detailed tree bark and birds just seemed more beautiful without humankind near them, to Keith it just seemed complete in the larger perspective of things.

 

Pulling his gaze away from his illustrations, he turned to focus on some reference images hanging from his pinboard. He plucked a picture of a field off the wall, sat down with his sketchbook again and withdrew his tangled headphones from his pocket, hoping that the sweet melodies resonating from his phone and the pencil scraping against the paper would lift his spirits.

 

Nearly three hours later an abrupt, almost silent knock interrupted the slow steady beats of music and the unwavering strokes of graphite against the paper. Keith flinched, and slowly advanced towards the door, opening it shakily. There, he found a small meal of mashed potato and two chicken wings waiting for him, with wisps of steam curling off the plate, carrying a delicious and comforting scent to his face. He smiled fondly, silently thankful for his absent mother.

 

Keith’s fork clattered onto the empty plate left on his desk. He stretched, forcing himself to stay awake to continue his artwork, determined to finish it that night, however soon began to drift off. He dejectedly climbed into his bed, curled up under his covers, waiting for a better tomorrow.

 

**____________________________________**

 

Keith's eyes burst open with panic, shifting frantically around him, searching for anything. He stared into the vast blue distance stretching endlessly around him. He began to panic. His arms flailed around in futility, desperate to make contact with something. Anything. Something cold suddenly clasped his left arm and pulled him to the surface.

 

He gasped and coughed, calming down as gentle waves lapped at his face and peered around, admiring the vast sun-baked plains and lush forests spread around him. The rich green filling his eyes seemed almost surreal. Boundless valleys and canyons, towering hills and mountains, crystal clear lakes and rivers as far as the eye could see. The last thing that Keith noticed was the person in front of him, sitting in the grass of the lake bank with bright blue eyes that he swore he could see the constellations in, surrounded by dark tan flawless skin and short brown hair that framed his face perfectly. Keith hesitantly opened his dry lips to speak.

 

"You're really cold." Was the first comprehensive sentence that came out of his mouth.

 

_'Shit.'_ He thought to himself, as he mentally slapped himself more times then he can count.

 

"Well, that's just because you're really hot." The strange blue eyed boy retorted, Keith hoped that his face wasn’t as red as it felt, as he snatched his hand away and retreated back into the water.

 

"No, wait! I mean literally- no, that's not what I meant, really!" The tan boy tripped over his words before reaching to grab Keith again. He pulled him out of the water to sit on the grass. The two didn't meet in conversation again until the strange boy extended his hand. Keith, although hesitant, shook it.

 

"I'm Lance," He said as he gave Keith a playful smile. “I'm guessing that you're Keith?”

 

In reflex, Keith found his eyes quietly studying the grass beneath their feet.

 

"Yeah that's me, but how did you know that?" Keith tried to meet his eyes again but ultimately just looked at his shoulder.

 

"Would you believe me if I told you it was a lucky guess?" Lance snickered.

 

"Definitely not" He replied cheekily.

 

"For my sake, believe it was a lucky guess." Lance pleaded, exploiting Keith with his bright blue puppy-dog eyes.

 

"Fine, then." Keith pouted crossing his arms.

 

By that point he didn't even realise that he was looking Lance directly in the eyes.

 

After their antics the two found themselves sitting on one of the nearby hills watching over the vastness of the unreal landscape, the hills rolled on forever, occasionally being parted by small clusters of forests standing out against the thriving fields. Although Keith was curious about where he was and who exactly Lance was, his thoughts were quickly replaced by snappy one liners he could respond to Lance's remarks about him.  

 

"So then Hunk was all like, _Lance are you ok or are you dead? For my sake I hope it's the first one_." He deepened his voice as he spoke, mimicking the different people in his tales. Keith watched him, fascinated, noticing that Lance tended to wave his hands around a lot in an attempt to further describe each situation, until they settled on his hips. Keith found himself hopelessly lost in Lance’s stories, but a small chuckle was released from his lips nevertheless.

 

"By the time he got me home, he was so stressed that he had thrown up 4 times! But I told him I was all good and he calmed down a bit after he heard that." Lance observed that the sun's light shone deep purple in Keith’s eyes as a small smile melted onto both of their faces. "Any good pastime stories that you have to tell, Keith?" Lance’s face lit up with anticipation.

 

"Just one" Keith sighed to himself before he continued,

 

"When I was living at my second foster home I decided that a fun thing to do would be to steal my adoptive mother's bag and put it in the bin. My 7 year-old mind thought it was hilarious for some reason, but obviously it wasn't as funny to her, so as punishment she made me try on all her lipsticks for hours just to make sure that the colours were bright enough." Keith snickered to himself,

 

"My lips were stained bright pink for weeks. It was really embarrassing at the time but the more I reflect on it the more fond of a memory it becomes to me." He chuckled lightly as the blue-eyed boy listened on in fascination with a slight, amused smile on his face.

 

The two sat in comfortable silence as a slight breeze flowed past them. The area they looked out onto was plain, consisting of mostly just hills and forests, and yet so full of life. Animals of all sizes Keith had never seen before scampered, trotted and raced through the tall grass. Foreign bird calls filled the air aiding to the illusion of life, which Keith had yet to decide was actually there or not.

 

"So is this a dream... or something else?" The distant background noise was interrupted by the fair-skinned boy, "Well that depends... What do you want it to be?" Lance asked softly, blue irises engaging with dark violet.

 

"I don't know...a dream is probably easier to comprehend right? So for now I guess I'll believe that." Keith sighed in defeat as he gave into the vague statements that he had been told in the time he had spent in this _'dream'_. But now with this useless information Keith had acquired, he gave up on getting clear answers from this mysterious boy. He turned back to face tan skin and ocean blue eyes and just stared. This boy... he was an oddity.

 

Panicked, Keith looked around himself again, noticing that the colours of the distant rolling hills and mountains were blurring together. Raising his hands to his face and wiping his eyes only seemed to worsen this.

 

Lance caught his attention as he started to giggle,

 

“Don’t look so distressed! To use your example of explaining all of this, it’s just the process of you waking up.” He spoke cheerfully as Keith just stared at him; features becoming more blurred as he spoke.

 

“I feel weird…” Keith muttered as the scene in front of him became just a huge mixture of earthy tones with a dash of blue.

 

“You might feel weird for a while… it was nice meeting you though. See you next time!” Lance’s final words echoed as the abstract haze of colours greens and blues faded to black.

**___________________________________**

 

Keith's eyes felt heavy as he returned to consciousness. A piercing light blinded him as his eyelids fluttered open, identifying the slightly ajar curtain that was allowing the sun's rays to penetrate the usually dark room. Keith felt hazy as he rubbed his face, feeling as though a distant, perplexing memory just disappeared. He pushed himself off the floor, swaying as he stood on his feet and squinted around, confused.

 

"Why was I asleep on the floor? I could of sworn I had gone to sleep on the bed... I guess I must of rolled off?" He murmured slowly to himself, baffled at the gaps in his memory from the previous night.

 

He stumbled over to the bedside table and snatched his phone. Letters blaring with blue light read: 12:46. Mumbling to himself he sat back down and grabbed his sketchbook. He figured that he had already missed 4 hours of school so what was even the point of showing up now?

 

Keith quickly shoved his art supplies into his bag and grabbed a pair of black jeans and an oversized red hoodie to cover his current clothing. He locked the front door and plodded down the deserted street of run down houses and polluted front gardens. Stopping at the local park he emptied his pencils onto a wooden picnic table and started outlining the rundown swing set and corroded slide.

 

Using his limited dark toned pencils, he sketched up a rough version of the scene and allowed his mind to relax with the familiar feeling of graphite rubbing into his hands. Once happy with it he lifted his hand off the paper and examined his work. Using his deep black pencil as the darkest shadows gave a certain sullen depth to the piece, which he admired. However, it wasn’t until he looked at the drawing a second time that he noticed it.

 

There was a boy sitting on the grass in the background, too far away to identify his face, however Keith did not recognise the features he could observe. How could he have subconsciously drawn a person whom he had never seen?

 

Keith’s artworks only ever consisted of inanimate objects, animals or environments - they never included people. Why had this suddenly changed? After pondering the sudden appearance of a random boy in his artwork, Keith decided he should probably head home. Approaching his front door, he was greeted with the aroma of chopped vegetables. The door squeaked as it shut behind him causing chatter in the kitchen.

 

“Hey Keith, just making some dinner...are you ok? You look a bit pale.” His mother strode up to him and pressed her hand against his forehead. He looked up to meet her brown irises, filled with worry.

 

“You’re burning up, hold on” She hurried back to the kitchen and returned with a glass thermometer in her hand. After directing Keith to the couch she put the device into his mouth.

 

Taking it out she stared at it in shock, and quickly ran out of the room to get an ice pack and water before tucking Keith in to bed. She sat by his bedside as he protested; “Mum I swear I’m ok! I feel fine!” He knew that this would be ineffective, however - his mother tended to overreact and fuss over her adopted son’s well being. She adamantly placed cool, wet towels on his forehead.

 

After an hour of obsessing over her son, she finally went back down stairs to finish dinner before his father came home. The moment the door clicked closed, Keith threw the covers off and sat up, staring into the mirror.

 

He looked and felt fine, he thought. Twirling his dark locks in his hands he allowed his unresolved questions flood his mind. This all started today, when an unknown person appeared in my drawing... _who was it_?

 

_Who was he?_

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again everyone and welcome back! This fic is just me wanting to have some fun and get some inspo back to continue creating Fireworks, I really wanted to try writing a genre that I love to read and write about and give it another shot, so this story came into existence. This is going to be hopefully a long work as I am going to try my best finishing it before I go into Year 11 this year and go through bucket loads of stress. (Update: didn’t finish it, stressed but alright and the workload is intense.)
> 
> I really want to create something that I can be proud of and know that I put a lot of time and effort into so this is it, to ensure that everything is ok I got one of my friends to beta read for me, so I hope that you'll enjoy this self-indulgent fic that is essentially my last free breathing moments before stress overload.
> 
> Instagram: @shippingthepack  
> Tumblr: @myanime-trashcan


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